Vizianagaram accident is the latest. Time to face the day, the clock is ticking!
I had written earlier that Balasore appeared to be an aberration as the safety record of IR had improved significantly in the last five/six years due to elimination of all unmanned level crossings and increased attention to track maintenance. Sadly, I spoke too soon! The recent spate of rail tragedies, the latest being the accident of Visakhapatnam-Rayagada Passenger ramming the rear of Visakhapatnam-Palasa Passenger near Vizianagaram with 14 people dead, calls for serious introspection by Indian Railways (IR). It started with the Balasore accident this June. A catastrophic accident, the worst in the last 28 years with 300 dead and a thousand injured. T he interlocking of signals was tampered with by a manual interposition to signal Coromandel Express via main line while its route was set to an occupied loop line, resulting in a three-way collision. There had been a series of human errors which caused the accident: 1) Erroneous Signalling circuit alteration and ...